And some kinds of love are mistaken for vision

What’s more important in our artists: success or happiness?

I mean, yes, obviously, it is possible to be both successful and happy. (And here I’m defining “success” from an artistic/critical standpoint, not commercial, which brings about its own set of issues.) A lot of great music, literature and visual art has come from artists in positive mindsets. So this shouldn’t even be a choice worth discussing.

Right?

Maybe. Look, it’s not an entirely uncommon idea that artists often produce their best work when they’re miserable, depressed, paranoid, jealous, etc, place your favorite descriptor of an unhappy life here. Let’s pretend for a second that this has a kernel of truth – those with an axe to grind probably have something more interesting to say than those who are just hanging out, right? If so, it can create a problem for an artist’s followers and fans. Do you wish your favorite artist the best in life, or do you want the quality of their work to remain as high as possible, no matter the cost?

Quick example: One of my favorite bands is The National. Lord knows I can’t recommend these guys enough. They write some of the most beautifully depressing music I’ve ever heard. And they’re perfectly allowed to write happier songs, too – a lot of their newer, comparatively more positive stuff is good, but I always feel like they’re better at illustrating a whiskey-soaked, heartbroken 3am comedown than describing the best way to make their girlfriend laugh. (Maybe it’s me.)

Some friends and I went to see their show several weeks ago, and we were blown away by their performance and musicianship as usual. But we also noticed singer Matt Berninger seemed to be having a tougher time of it than usual. Struggling with some of his more personal lyrics. Nervous, abortive physical maneuvers around the stage. Lots of screaming. It was the kind of intensely awesome performance we hadn’t seen out of him since maybe ’06. And we (arbitrarily) decided that he must have broken up with his girlfriend. Which in turn made us think “cool, now he’s going to start writing darker music again.”

Which is a pretty fucked up thing to think, leap of logic or not. As an artist, your fans are bound to gravitate toward certain works, and what they might expect from you is not necessarily what you want to provide (our frequent concert shout-outs requesting one of the most depressing songs ever written always go unheeded, sadly). It’s a divide that comes with the territory. But it’s another thing entirely for fans to desire a quality of life for the artist.

Ideally, yes, we would like our artists to be happy/comfortable/rich and also to continue producing excellent works of art. But if you have to choose one result over the other, what would it be? Is it even a choice where, after having made it, we could still feel comfortable with ourselves? It’s a burden I wouldn’t want to have to bear, though it’s a choice I feel I sometimes unconsciously make about artists I genuinely respect.

And, if someday my writing finds a fanbase and some level of popularity, it’s also something that many strangers may be quietly theorizing about me. Which is pretty fucking creepy.

If it’s 100 degrees, it’s still summer.

Every season I make a mix tape/mix cd/playlist of the stuff I listened to over those few months. I don’t keep a diary or scrapbook or even make very personal entries on web journals like this, so the songs and sequences I choose for these mixes form the closest thing to an autobiographical account of my life as any of us are going to get. Some seasons are more obtuse than others.

I’ve been doing this since 2003 and haven’t missed a season yet (even if I’m late here and there). If you poke around elsewhere on the net (and if you care) you might find previous mixes, but I’m going to start posting them here from now on because why not, I have a blog so why not use the damn thing.

The Summer 2009 mix is called “Chameleonic Tendencies” and it goes like this:

1. Passion Pit – Moth’s Wings
2. Department of Eagles – No One Does It Like You
3. Yacht – Psychic City
4. Atlas Sound ft. Noah Lennox – Walkabout
5. Animal Collective – For Reverend Green
6. Volcano Choir – Island, IS
7. Dirty Projectors – Useful Chamber
8. Mew – Vaccine
9. Phoenix – Armistice
10. Miike Snow – Sans Soleil
11. Yeasayer – Tightrope
12. Nine Inch Nails – Discipline
13. Grizzly Bear – About Face
14. White Denim – Regina Holding Hands
15. Los Campesinos! – We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed
16. Sufjan Stevens – You Are the Blood

(BONUS QUESTION: I never have more than one song from an artist on a single mix, but I kind of cheated twice – you might even say three times – on this one. Can you find them?)

Not So Fast.

I really liked The Hurt Locker, but I’m not sure how I can explain the damn thing to you. The film has been called a lot of things: Epic War Journal, Suspenseful Thriller, Action Extravaganza, Insular Character Study; the list goes on. It’s a little bit of each of these, but not really all of any of it, which makes the thing so hard to categorize — but is also more than a little responsible for its success.

“War Movie” is probably the most obvious and misleading of its descriptors. Sure, almost all of it takes place during a war, and most of what we learn about the characters comes to light because of (and is heavily informed toward) a life of neverending battle on Whatever Constitutes The Front Lines These Days. But it’s not at all your typical Hollywood peacenik “My God, War is Hell” diatribe, which might have made for some quality post-Vietnam stories but can’t seem to find an audience with this century’s ever-jaded audiences.

A lot of critics have been calling this the first great film about the Iraq War, and I think that’s exactly because the film isn’t trying to be. At least, not exactly.

The Hurt Locker does something very simple: it seeks nothing more than to tell a story in the best way it can. Nothing gets in the way: not ideology, not inflated egos, not mass-market paranoia.

Wait, in Hollywood? (This is probably why it started as an arthouse film, only growing to wide release thanks to overwhelmingly positive word of mouth. Look, I don’t need to tell anyone that arthouse fare is generally better-written and more insightful than the average megaplex feature. I guess the reason this film throws these differences into such sharp relief is that, on first glance, it looks like it belongs at the megaplex, what with the explosions and expansive sets and even Guy Pearce. We all have such strong expectations of how a film like this typically behaves, and Locker so deftly subverts them within its first ten minutes that you can’t help but sit up and wonder, now more than ever, why more films can’t not just look but also feel so real.)

Locker explores a small number of characters in a wartime situation that happens to be Iraq. The rationale for the war is never explored; the soldiers’ place in an infamously contentious situation never outright questioned. There are no grandstanding judgments or righteous crusades, no Ultimate Antagonists without or within. Even the protagonist, who suffers from a kind of cowboy-action-hero syndrome, is shown as neither Perfect American Hero nor out-of-touch goofball. The film explores these characters and how they live with a situation that exists beyond their control or understanding. And it’s that deceptively simple framework that produces results far more interesting and surprising than anything you’re going to see in those other war movies that decided they were going to be “important” from day one.

It speaks to a larger idea of what’s supposed to be important versus what is important; the divide between intent and execution. If you’re creating something, there should never be such a divide – unless you’re creating some experimental wankery about artist vs. audience and all that, and if so, best of luck to you – but how do you ensure that intent is execution? It’s the same deceptively simple answer as before: make sure your intent is to tell your story the best you possibly can.

That may be unfairly reductive, especially when many have to deal with the whims of financiers, editors, deadlines, feeding one’s family, etc. But I see it more as an umbrella term with a lot of possible manifestations, like Keep Revising, Do Your Research, Let the Story Tell Itself. Don’t Discount Someone’s Feedback Because They Don’t Understand Your Big Ideas. Do Not Expect to Win an Oscar. And however many other rules you can think of.

And this extends to other walks of life too. If all you can think about at the office is getting that promotion, you’re not going to be able to put in the work necessary to earn it. If you’re killing yourself always trying to look flawless for the opposite sex, you won’t be able to loosen up and actually engage with anyone. (This last one, I am still working on.)

So the moral of the story is… well, I guess you could boil it down to one of many familiar idioms, in one way or another. Look Before You Leap. Don’t Count Your Eggs Before They’re Hatched. It’s All in the Follow-Through. You get the idea. But just spouting the idiom kind of takes away from all the work you put in to get to that point, and the understanding you reach from having achieved that knowledge on your own. Which, I guess, is an inverted way of saying what I already said. Maybe this wasn’t so hard to explain after all.

But how does it make you feel…?

So far, one of the most critically-praised albums released this year has been Dirty Projectors’ Bitte Orca. I like the album a lot, though I’m kind of surprised to see just how wide a range of accolades it’s received; for all its arhythmic constructions and obtuse lyrics, the thing seems well on its way to the kind of success enjoyed by more mainstream-friendly bands like Spoon and TV on the Radio. (2009 has also, of course, been The Year of Animal Collective, but that’s another story.)

I read a recent interview with Dirty Projectors frontman Dave Longstreth, hoping he would illuminate an album which I enjoy but have a hard time understanding. But maybe understanding isn’t really the point. When asked about the meaning behind the album’s title, Longstreth said:

“There’s not really a literal meaning to draw out of the phrase. But I like the way the words sound together. I feel like there’s some kind of sense just in the relation between the two. Sort of like, “please please me” or something. There’s a part that’s sort of gentle, and supple, and then there’s a part that’s barbed, and demanding. “Bitte” is a polite word, but it’s sharp.”

And later on, with reagrds to the same phrase used in the song “Useful Chamber”:

“Lyrically, it’s just the sense of the words become aural rather than literal. I guess I don’t think of it as dodging and weaving in terms of coherence, or you know, like as you were saying, emotional forthrightness.

“But yeah, one of the beautiful things about music is how simple and direct a line of communication it is. And I guess what I want to do, and what we want to do, is try to make music that feels good, and feels expressive– even as it does so in a new vocabulary.”

In other words, it’s not really about the words in the context of linguistics or grammar; it’s about the meaning behind those words, an almost subconscious association we make between sound and expression.

An emphasis on lyricism over syntax is nothing new in the world of art, of course; you could look at James Joyce’s Ulysses or Finnegans Wake or even half the nursery rhymes your mother sang to you at bedtime. Even in indie rock: reading an interview with The National frontman Matt Berninger, I was kind of disappointed to hear that they’d actively avoided specific interpretation while putting together one of my favorite albums, Alligator. (At the time I guess I wanted a back-pat for “cracking the code” or whatever. I’d like to think my listening habits have since changed.)

Even Edgar Allan Poe, a poet obsessed with details and structural minutae, has also long championed the meaning behind the words above all else. But Poe also admitted that discovering meaning was no easy task. Near the beginning of “Eleonora”, he writes:

“the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence — whether much that is glorious – whether all that is profound — does not spring from disease of thought — from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect. They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. In their gray visions they obtain glimpses of eternity, and thrill, in awakening, to find that they have been upon the verge of the great secret.”

Now, I’ve always been pretty awful at poetry. Legendarily awful. And maybe it’s because, as Poe speculates, I’m not all that mad. (Though I do daydream a lot.) Though now I’m thinking it’s because I may just be too literal. And really, the media I’m writing for at the moment are too consumer-oriented to dip into the pool of subconscious; can you imagine if an episode of Lost was a stream-of-consciousness Paean To Summer, where all the actors shirked their lines and instead gesticulated, hummed and bellowed nonsense to each other for forty minutes?

Actually, I would totally watch that.

But I can’t be totally jaded about this, right? Surely there’s some example of modern filmmaking or television that expertly splits the difference between syntax and feeling; something less stilted than broad comedies but more accessible than The Tim & Eric Awesome Show. I mean, right? Maybe?

Watching out for myself

I haven’t posted in a while because – I swear! – I’ve been doing a lot of work towards getting my projects together, researching, rewriting, all that. I’ve also been trying to watch more films lately. I’ve seen very few movies over the last few years, because planning to spend 2 hours watching a movie often strikes me as a colossal waste of my free time, because think of how much other stuff I could be getting done in that time, right (even if not much actually ends up getting done, but it’s the thought that counts, I guess?). But I find it’s easier to commit to that time if I know I’m going to think critically about the film I’m about to watch, in terms of its script and story structure, and how I can use that information to better my own process.

In other words, I’ve been on the front end of the screenwriting process for so long that I need to regain a clearer view of the back end; it does no good to sit around and assume I know what studios are looking for if I don’t get out there and see the kinds of stories they do pick up, and which ones are successful.

(Granted, many scripts purchased or optioned never see the light of day, and those that do are often rewritten and mucked about with by studio, director, actor, test audience, etc. So it’s an imperfect science. But, like everything else, if you can’t predict the future you should at least try to make an educated guess.)

So I engaged a few recent films with my Critical Writerly Eye, hard-forged from constant peer review and structural study, to see what I could see. Results and SPOILERS! after the jump.

Slumdog Millionaire: Oscar®-Winner for Best Picture 2008! Wow! This movie must be amazing, right? I had high expectations, which were mostly filled out by Danny Boyle’s typically expert and unique direction, strong performances from many age groups of actors, and some really beautiful locations. It’s impossible not to feel for Jamal and his eternal quest for Latika, and there are some incredibly emotional moments in the film. But the resolution left me feeling a little flat, and it took me a while to figure out why.

For all its skill and flavor, the Slumdog story is missing one of the cardinal components of what constitutes a “structurally sound” script: its protagonist, Jamal, has no real flaw. Sure, the guy is a little nerdy and does have to resort to crime at a young age to survive, but none of this causes an internal struggle that must be overcome in order for Jamal to succeed in his quest (to win Latika and, to a lesser extent, to be able to support her financially). Even Jamal’s status as a Slumdog in caste-obsessed Mumbai takes the form of an external impediment to his success; we get no hint of internal turmoil when he strives and searches in settings and lifestyles far beyond his own. Jamal simply continues on his single-minded quest to win Latika and succeeds at the end, his personality remaining the same as it was at the story’s beginning (even, arguably, as it was a decade earlier in the character’s life).

Is this a bad thing? It may depend on your point of view. If I had brought this script to a peer review, I almost certainly would have been lambasted for such an omission (and would have been referred to several memorable protagonists who do have to overcome an inner obstacle over the course of their journey, like Lethal Weapon‘s near-suicidal Sgt. Riggs or As Good as it Gets‘s misanthropic Melvin Udall). But I’ve spoken with several writers about this and most seem strangely OK with it. Most of their reasoning has to do with it either being adapted from a book, or purposefully trying to feel like a modern fairy tale. I understand both of these points, but I’m not sure I agree with either one. Would Slumdog have been better and more interesting if Jamal had a deep flaw to overcome? Maybe. I personally find it hard to root for idealized characters, but your mileage may vary.

District B13: Watched this for research on Parkour and freewalking. A French film that went by with not a lot of fanfare in 05/06, it was a really enjoyable action flick with a fairly solid script and enough humor to keep the whole experience really enjoyable.

As noted, Parkour was a huge component, thanks in no small part to the presence of co-star David Belle, who actually helped create the Parkour movement in the late ’90s. His Parkour sequences are breathtaking to watch; you’re not likely to find this stuff anywhere else (though Casino Royale has a pretty good sequence in its own right). In fitting with the Parkour aesthetic, his movements aren’t flashy or aggressive (he’s typically running and escaping, not fighting or showing off), but they’re no less impressive for their ingenuity, proficiency and audacity. (The hour-long making-of doc on the DVD does reference Parkour, though I was hoping for more than a brief mention of one of the film’s most unique dimensions.)

Story-wise, there are a few ridiculous and inexplicable moments, sure, but for the most part it’s solid and even fits a few cool spins on old ideas here and there; the typical action tropes of “tacked-on love interest” and “bad guy gets his just desserts” do surface, but here too, a little innovation goes a long way. Even the clichéd “some problems can’t be solved with violence” message really fits – again, in no small part thanks to the philosophy behind Parkour. At any rate, I enjoyed the film a lot.

Terminator: Salvation: Woof. The less said about this, the better.

The Hangover: Absolutely hysterical. And as a broad, high-concept comedy, this is exactly the kind of film I stand to learn the most from. If there’s one thing the script does best, it’s the sheer volume of real jokes, packed into almost every line; and here I’ve been using entire scenes to build up to one punchline! Everyone in Hollywood has been amazed that a film with no bankable stars has made so much money. I’m not, really, and anyone who’s seen the film probably shouldn’t be: with such a funny script (finely acted by all involved), easily explained to Joe Public and more than able to be cut into a hilarious trailer, why wouldn’t droves of people want to see it? Some even twice, because they were too drunk to remember much of it the first time, appropriately enough?

As with most broad comedies, the bellylaughs do disguise some plot holes and character development, though it’s far more infrequent (and the quibbles more minor) than you’d expect. The gang’s visit to the Tyson residence doesn’t move the plot or their quest forward (especially glaring since the rest of the scenes do such a good job of this) – it only shows them, via security camera feed, that their missing buddy Doug was with them at that point in the night, which doesn’t really propel the story anywhere. And this is further complicated by a later discovery of photos of the night, which show the guys going off to Tyson’s after they put Doug to bed? I also would have loved for Heather Graham’s character to have evolved past the typical sweet-smiling, ever-understanding love interest typical in broad comedies like this. At least she’s a hooker. (Which is probably the first time I’ve ever used that phrase.)

Finally – and this might say more about me than it does the movie, but – in keeping with my focus on plot, structure, character, etc, I felt there was a lost opportunity in the character development of Phil (Bradley Cooper), so deftly introduced to us as he swindles his students out of money for his Vegas trip. Here’s another kind of misanthrope, who will nevertheless pull out all the stops for his best friend; I wanted to know more about this guy, especially when he says early on, and with very little irony in his voice, “I hate my life”. I saw this as the starting point for his character’s journey over the next debaucherous days; but, as he marshaled the search for Doug, kept his motley crew of groomsmen alive and motivated, and finally reached the wedding only to lovingly embrace his wife and son, I realized that journey never came. Maybe that “telling” line was poorly delivered or poorly interpreted by me; maybe his character scenes got cut (we’ll see when the DVD comes out). And maybe it’s just in my head: I brought this up to my friends as we left the theater, and they didn’t seem bothered. They actually liked that it wasn’t a Thing; that if his character did evolve, it happened beneath the surface. Maybe because not everything needs to be fully explained, or it would have detracted from the laughs, or it just wasn’t necessary. It bothered me, but again, there’s varying mileage.

***

So what did I learn? I think after all of this I came out with more questions than answers. When it comes to writing and story structure, do “rules” really count for anything? Am I already interpreting movies in a far different light from most other people? Am I paying too much attention to the plot to be able to forgive or enjoy the rest of the film? Is there an incorrect way to watch films, or a correct way to watch anything? Or should I, you know, sit back, shut up, and enjoy the ride?

I wish I knew.

Adventures in Short Fiction #03: Inverse

(haven’t posted much lately since I spent a few weeks in Japan and I’m now working heavily on a new series… so here’s another short story from back in the day.)

Melinda’s parents wanted their child to be smart. A noble idea, certainly; but, as if secretly ashamed of the idea of education, or just doubtful that their little girl could operate without a sugar coating, they decided it would be best to educate her through a cornucopia of “edutainment” products. Most of these were cheap videos starring googly-eyed anthropomorphic puppets who, over the course of 22 minutes, learned various life lessons about sharing or the Dewey Decimal System while singing catchy songs about shapes or the letter B. As an only child with working parents, this was Melinda’s primary method of learning and communication for a good while; where some parents used flash cards or read the newspaper to their children, Melinda got The Mayor of Math and Geography Gina 2: Greece’s Pieces. At first she was a little insulted by these egregiously obvious attempts to pass off learning as recreation. Not because she disliked learning; the tyke loved it, and that was the problem. The parts she found interesting, such as lists of prime numbers and the average rainfall of the Amazon basin, were regularly obscured by pedestrian story arcs featuring skittish wallabies or jive-talking rodents. But Melinda’s folks mistook her sieve-like thirst for knowledge for a serious interest in edutainment products, so the videos, activity books, snack packs and Sing-a-Song cassettes kept coming.

Before long, Melinda had grown accustomed to digesting information in bite-size, song-accompanied chunks. She memorized the entire soundtrack to Timothy’s Tiddlywinks and couldn’t count to ten without seeing Ensley Elephant carefully climbing up that infamous flight of stairs. In grade school, Melinda would make up songs to help her learn state capitols, and constructed a menagerie of puppets to ease memorization of the Declaration of Independence. Though these endeavors were generally successful, they didn’t improve her grades – her methods of learning were just too complex and time-consuming to keep up with her ever-increasing workload. While the rest of her sixth grade class was memorizing lines of Shakespeare word-by-word, Melinda was designing 16th-century garb for a dozen glassy-eyed Montague monkeys and Capulet squirrels, pondering each puppet’s motivation. In middle school she found that the good grades expected of a “weird dork” like her were getting harder to attain; she redoubled her efforts, inventing bookfuls of rhyming couplets which formed an impenetrable map of the foundations of her knowledge. Lunchtime was mostly spent alone, furiously scribbling through sketchbook after sketchbook. To the other kids, she began to seem less “eccentric” and more “nuts”.

High school found Melinda suffering two nervous breakdowns (the first fueled by heavy amounts of Mr. Pibb and Mountain Dew freshman year; the second, much later, from LSD and battery acid), developing three different eating disorders, and single-handedly derailing a 10th grade production of “Guys and Dolls”. During English tests she would mutter convoluted rhymes under her breath at breakneck speeds, grunting when she tripped over her own tongue. Her graveyard shift at Wal-Mart funded her ceaseless search for rare Etiquette Goats merchandise (only $75 for the rainbow shirt – original pressing!) and whatever other edutainment-related nostalgia she could revisit from the days when everything was simpler. She even flirted with a brief puppet-crafting career, until one of her more twisted creations caused a boy to wet his bed for a month straight. One day at lunch, a popular girl decided to steal Melinda’s sketch book to prove some kind of point; neither her parents nor the principal could understand why Melinda retaliated by trying to bite the girl’s nose off. Stanford was pretty much out of the question by this point.

Thirty years on, life is still interesting. Melinda now lives in a treehouse in Sarasota filled with hundreds of stuffed animals and notepads full of scribblings, strange loops and formulae that would baffle cryptographers. She speaks in fragments and symbols, cooing quiet, garbled melodies as she sews new clothing for her puppets. She has created a rickety, steam-powered machine which paints perfectly careening mobius strips of any size or color; her mind houses a 10-year oral history of her synthetic housemates which dwarfs Ulysses in scope and grandeur. Her life might have turned out far differently if she could remember how to connect with people; but that’s far behind her now, the possibility an old uninteresting relic. Maybe someday her sidewinding genius will be recognized and appreciated. It just has to be communicated first.

The Geometry of Identity

I have this batshit theory that character traits may actually work across a multi-dimensional spectrum, and that formalizing such a spectrum may help us more easily understand and identify character type and… well, honestly I think it would help with a lot of things. It’s probably too complex for someone like me to be able to define, but I could at least get the ball rolling.

Imagine something like a color wheel, but with gradients of personality instead of hue. There’s basically an infinite amount of sets of axes that could be plotted around the center point (which I guess would symbolize the most balanced/boring person in existence), with each axis symbolizing one extreme versus its opposite (selfish vs. selfless, fearless vs. paranoid, etc). This is kind of headed in the right direction, but it seems too focused on defining traits as inherently “positive” or “negative” to feel very accurate or useful to me.

But anyway, just like the code E62802 defines a specific point on a color wheel, so could the name “Jack Sparrow” define a specific point on the personality wheel. If you can see the point at which their personality resides, you immediately discover a lot about them. Their opinions, ideals, how they would react to certain things. Or – more importantly, if you’re a creator – you could use the chart to get a sense of what needs to be shown to the audience, and what can remain a mystery.

So here’s a way-oversimplified mock-up:

It’s pretty arbitrary and comes nowhere close to describing the full spectrum of our personalities, but still, for example.

Let’s say we start watching a film. In the first scene, the protagonist gives some bum five bucks. Okay, the guy’s not too selfish. So if we’re following along on the wheel, we could black out some areas where we’re pretty sure his personality won’t fall:

(We don’t go all the way up to the midpoint, since a trait in the center can swing either way depending on the situation.)

In the next scene, a biker narrowly misses hitting him on a busy street. Our protagonist yells “Watch it, buddy”. Fairly normal behavior, sure, but not exactly lenient. So we can further amend our wheel:

The next scene is on the bus, where our protagonist strikes up a conversation with a stranger. “I just lost my job and can’t afford medication for my wife,” says the stranger. “With the economy this bad, I don’t know how I can hope to keep her healthy.”

“Don’t worry, sir,” says our protagonist, “something will turn up, you’ll see. No problem is insurmountable.”

Pretty damn optimistic, right? OK, we’re getting a good bead on this character now:

Finally our protagonist arrives at a nondescript old building. As he enters and prepares for something, we realize he’s at his job. He cleans himself up and heads into a dark room… where a bloody, broken man sits tied to a chair. Our protagonist sharpens a knife. Only shit, this guy is a TORTURER. And, we find out, he works for a shadowy right-wing group that has taken domestic terrorist watch into its own hands. As he approaches his quarry, we make the final big change to our chart:

Didn’t see that one coming, huh?

But it’s pretty much in line with what we’ve seen so far, and that’s the power of the whole thing. Once you have a good idea of the spot your character occupies on the chart, it becomes much easier to decide what to tell your audience, and when to tell it for maximum dramatic effect.

If limited stories (i.e. feature films) are about the protagonist overcoming a major character flaw, then open-ended ones (i.e. television series) are about slower character evolution. Your movie hero will (ideally) jump from one spot on the chart to another by the end of the film, while serial characters will move slowly along different axes as they encounter new situations. And all of this can be easily charted and predicted in similar ways to what we’ve just done.

The question is, I guess, how far do we take this methodology? How much can, or should, we reduce our personalities to geometric formulas and loci? And, someone who’s not me, please weigh in: does this idea even work in the first place?

Adventures in Short Fiction #02: Kind of a Reach

“What does it look like?” Simon barked, standing over a giant red barrel, sweating, wrench in hand. “I’m transcending, goddammit!”

The red barrel had been sculpted to look aerodynamic. It had fins, vents and a papier-mache nose cone which wasn’t quite the same shade of red as everything else. The back end had a fuse sticking out of it. “Right now?” I asked. “This second?”

“Soon enough,” Simon said, beckoning me over. I noticed the barrel was sitting on a thin wooden track which led down the hill and up to a lip at the edge of a small cliff, a natural ramp if ever there was one. I was beginning to piece together Simon’s machinations.

I admired the barrel’s paint job, looked over blueprints hastily drawn in the dirt. “You’re not really going to–“

“Yes! I am, of course I am,” Simon said, approaching me. “How else am I going to activate my crown chakra in this bloody countryside? I’d like to see you escape Kamadhatu without a propulsion unit.”

“I don’t… what?”

Simon strapped on goggles and a large, pointy backpack. “You could see all of this if you used your third eye.” He stepped into his barrel, lit the fuse on the back. “Don’t blame me if you find yourself stuck in samsara for all eternity.”

Something exploded on the back of the barrel, sending it ricketing down the track. It careened up and over the edge of the cliff, the jigsaw craft actually achieving some bastardized form of temporary flight. At the height of its arc, Simon flung himself from the cockpit, hollering like a drunken Briton playing at cowboys. His backpack exploded into two vinyl archangel wings, which carried him up and away from the plummeting barrel, and for the briefest moment he actually hung in the air, weightless, the afternoon sun casting his titanic shadow all the way back to the hill. Then his left wing snapped off, and he tumbled into the woods below.

Searching the underbrush for the crash site, I came upon the barrel, hopelessly shattered beyond repair. Bushes rustled behind me; Simon appeared on the scene, muddied, bloody and grinning, the sparkle in his eyes almost as evident as his newfound limp. I offered my shoulder, but Simon wouldn’t take it, couldn’t stop smiling.

I was a little surprised to find he hadn’t become jelly on a rock somewhere. “Holy hell. You alright, Simon?”

“Better than alright. The things I saw, you couldn’t imagine.”

“Well then you’d better tell me, I guess.”

Simon stopped, grabbed my shoulder, gazed intently into my eyes. “A catapult. It’s going to be the biggest you’ve ever seen, a great elevator of taught rope and steel to the heavens. I start work on it tomorrow.”

I walked Simon home as he spoke to himself in complex equations and theological riddles, arguing with and then apologizing to himself. I left him there on his front lawn, drawing diagrams and formulae in the dirt, scratching away at answers either buried in the ground or lost in the sky.

Adventures in Short Fiction #01: After a Fashion

(I’m working on some new content for this blog – honestly I am – but in the meantime I thought it’d be a not-terrible idea to post some short stories I’ve written over the last few years, some of which first appeared on my malnourished livejournal account. So it may be new to you! This one, as you probably saw above, is called “After a Fashion”.)

“Don’t you have a Face-Plant Squid yet?” Carrie asks from behind a black, oozing protoplasmic sac, its sleek tentacles wrapped through and around her blonde curls.

“No, I don’t,” I say. “Should I?”

Carrie rolls her eyes a little. I can’t exactly see her eyes anymore, but something about the shifting squid tells me she is. “Well, uh, yeah,” she says. “You better hurry before they run out.”

A quick walk through the neighborhood shows me Carrie was right to worry. Everybody’s got these things on their faces. Small green ones on the kids, a giant purplish one on Mr. Bantam. Well I’ll be damned if I’m going to be the last Edmunds High sophomore to get one of these before the weekend.

A block away from Mel’s I start to see large groups of the lucky bastards. They must just be hanging out, watching the lamers like me showing up late to the party. And is that…? FUCK! It is! Arnie Griff, captain of the chess team has one too? How did I miss this?

In front of Mel’s, I have to step over a few Squid-enhanced motherfuckers who’ve fallen over and are spasming uncontrollably. Those guys must have been so pumped they couldn’t take it. I get in the store, and lucky me, Mel says he’s two minutes away from closing, but he’ll give me a brand-new Face-Plant Squid for thirty-five dollars.

Dammit! Only twenty-five in my pockets. I need ten bucks and I need it fast. Outside I see some dude stumbling around. I ask him if I can please borrow ten bucks, oh please man I really need it, I’ll pay you right back. Jerk-off just kind of staggers away, mumbles something, totally ignores me. I go shake him a little. “Hey asshole!” I yell. “I said I need ten bucks!” Suddenly this dude shrieks, tenses up like I scared him or something, falls over. Dude doesn’t move, I see a little blood come out of his ear. His Face-Plant Squid starts wriggling, unattaches itself from the guy’s face, which looks weathered and sucked dry to the bone. The squid bounces away into an alley. The dude wheezes a little, then stops breathing.

So after a moment I decide not to pursue the squid into the alley. I’m gonna want a NEW one, not some used old thing that might be defective. And this dead dude, is he really gonna need ten bucks? I check out his wallet, and sure enough, today’s my lucky day, ex-President Hamilton stares me right in the face.

I run back into Mel’s. Nothing can ruin my mood now. I fork over the cash and Mel disappears into the back room. Man, any minute now I’m gonna be just like Carrie and Ted and probably the whole football team at this point, and yeah even Arnie Griff, but I guess you can’t have everything. I’m already planning my weekend out when Mel returns with my squid: who I’m gonna call, where we’re gonna go, how many new friends I’m gonna make. Mel lifts up the squid and its tentacles shoot out at me, raspy, pulsating. Deep within the squid I see a hole open, sharp pincers draw out towards my skull. I hear a low, hungry roar that gives me goosebumps.

This is gonna be so awesome.

The Coachella Report for 2009

Quick Notes on my Coachella Experience for 2009 (images pillaged liberally from flickr):

-This year was probably my least stressful one yet, at least in terms of transportation, parking, traffic time and logistics. I can’t say the same for all my friends, but it’s nice to know I’m getting the weekend procedures down to a workable science, even if I fought with “parking enforcement” more than once.

-Friday felt hot only because it’s been relatively cold for so long; Saturday was hotter and made me really start to feel the burn; Sunday was an outright blister of a day that flattened everyone who ventured outdoors for more than a few minutes. Coachella was a week earlier this year specifically to AVOID this. Now it looks like next weekend’s gonna be fairly reasonable in comparison. Oh well, B for effort.

-Los Campesinos! were easily the most fun band of the weekend, though that was pretty easy to predict. There were technical difficulties galore – I don’t know whether this was because the band themselves set up everything, or the general sound problems that seemed to plague every fourth band we saw that weekend, or what – but it was a small price to pay for the kind of infectious enthusiasm you only ever get from bands this young and this new to the circuit. They seemed to be in awe of the size of the crowd, to the point that a quarter of the band decided “fuck it, I’m crowd surfing” as the show drew to a close, drummer knocking over his set in the process and all. I’m not an expert on their gigography, but I don’t see how this show couldn’t have been one of their best.

-I’m the one guy on earth who didn’t really know the Ting Tings, so I ended up going to see them as kind of a last resort, but it turned out that 1) I actually did recognize a lot of their stuff and 2) They totally rocked the house. That’s a hard thing to do when “They” is two people without a stage show and “house” is the fucking Sahara tent at Coachella, so there you go.

-Hilarity at Coachella #1: three hours before McCartney is scheduled to appear, Alex Kapranos takes the stage in a George Harrison shirt. Franz Ferdinand was better and looser than when I saw them four years ago, but I wish they’d kept the extended jamming of songs like “40 ft” to a minimum for such a short festival set. They didn’t go that heavy on Tonight songs, but some of those they did play were head-scratchers (“Turn it On” but not “Lucid Dreams”?), but overall still a good time. It’s kind of amazing how, after all these years, “Take Me Out” still sounds so amazing.

-Fearless crowd navigation got us up close for Leonard Cohen, whose band provided probably the best-sounding set of the day. Amazingly, this guy still sounds exactly like he did forty years ago. I’m not overly familiar with his stuff but I assume we got most all the hits: “First We Take Manhattan”, “Everybody Knows”, “Hallelujah”, etc.

-We got almost to the front of the stage for Silversun Pickups, and I’m glad we did: apparently the crowd flocking to this secondary stage was MASSIVE. Maybe because this was essentially the coming-out show for their brand-new sophomore album (Glass House show doesn’t count). But they ripped through material old and new alike, and still found some time for very appreciated crowd banter, which seems a rarity these days (maybe I’m seeing the wrong bands). I was struck by just how genuinely happy and appreciative these guys were to see so many fans there to support them – they probably could have spent half their set thanking us. And the crowd was so enraptured that they probably would have been fine with it.

-I did not see much of Paul McCartney, and I only half regret it. Exhausted from over six straight hours of walking/standing/dancing, I was about ready to pack it in. And I figured I’d decide to leave or not based on what McCartney was playing. So of course all I heard was his solo stuff: “Band on the Run”; that awful new single of his; some silly “ho hey oh” business. It didn’t help that the one Beatles song I did hear, “Eleanor Rigby”, sounded awkward and out-of-tempo. So yeah, I left. And I was bummed when I heard echoes of “Live and Let Die” as I got to my car – would’ve liked to see that one, especially with the fireworks and all. Some of my friends who did see it told me it was beyond an amazing concert experience, and that some of my favorite Beatles songs ended up getting played. I mean, I’m glad they enjoyed it, I guess I just wasn’t into hearing “Helter Skelter” and “Lady Madonna” if it wasn’t the real deal.

-Saturday I didn’t get to see Ida Maria. Too bad, but why did she have to be scheduled at 1:30?? We were barely awake by then.

-Arrived to see most of Dr. Dog, who were pretty good. Caught one song from Amanda Palmer, who recruited the Lucent Dossier dancers from the next tent over for some crazy theatrics. Also caught part of Henry Rollins, which turned out to be a “spoken word” set – but it was more like him telling us about his life than free-form poetry or whatever. A lot of it was interesting and funny, but we were in the mood for music and carried on.

-The coolest piece of Coachella’s ever-revolving installation art pieces this year was The Hand of Man, a giant metal hand which was strong enough to pick up, drop and smash mid-size cars (and did so, frequently). It was controlled by actual festival-goers via a fancy Power Glove-type apparatus – pretty rad idea, though I was never able to take part.

-Wish I knew Superchunk better. We caught the last few songs, which were super energetic – especially closer “Slack Motherfucker”. These guys definitely have a ’90s alt-rock aesthetic – which is now apparently nostalgic, making me feel ancient by comparison. Good stuff, and I’m sure the fans were more than pleased.

-Hilarity at Coachella #2: I overhear a guy ask his girl, completely matter-of-factly, “so what’s in your pussy”?

-TV on the Radio is such an iffy band live. I don’t know if their stuff doesn’t translate, or they make the wrong choices during translation or what. I thought their set was mostly good when I saw them at the Wiltern in November, even if they couldn’t nail what made “Golden Age” and “DMZ” sound so great on record. At the Coachella stage, a second awkward rendering of the former made me not want to stick around for a possible second chance at the latter. But I’d been planning on leaving early anyway to see these next guys…

-Fleet Foxes took the stage just before sundown, and the transition from day to night only intensified the band’s ethereal performance. These guys nailed every aspect of their sound, from deep echoing vocals to pounding rhythms to extra little instrumental flourishes that (unlike some bands I’d just seen) served to enhance the songs instead of changing them. The band may not have thought so, but for my money this was probably the best performance of the weekend.

-I gave MIA a second chance after last year’s debacle, and I’m glad I did. This time there were few technical glitches, no overuse of gunshot clips, and a less angry crowd. MIA herself was more into it too – dancing, joking, postulating like a third-world dictator – and she just had a baby! The visuals were great too, a good mix of interesting animation and glowstick-lined dancers who looked like neon skeletons dancing in the desert dark.

-Caught bits of Mastodon and Coachella staple MSTRKRFT. Also saw several songs from Gang Gang Dance, whose electronic beats translated much better to a live setting than I’d have given them credit for. Chalk it up to live drums. Two sets of them. And I wasn’t the only one enjoying myself – I was a few feet away from TVOTR’s Kyp Malone, and (apparently) a few feet further from the girls of Los Campesinos!.

-Sunday I had to run through 101-degree heat to make the Friendly Fires set on time, but it was completely worth it. Missed No Age, which is a shame, but sleep is really nice too. FF is another young band with something to prove, and they brought a real playful intensity to their set. I wonder how many people were in there just to escape the oppressive heat, though.

-I ventured into the Mojave tent for Fucked Up’s set, and within three seconds I’d noticed 1) The lead singer was in the middle of the moshpit; 2) He was bleeding copiously from his forehead; 3) there was some sort of weird stench reminiscent of rotting artichokes that intensified exponentially as I got closer to the front. Numbers 1 and 2 made me want to stay, but number 3 forced me to get the hell out of the tent before I threw up. I don’t know what it was; I can stand the smell of sweat and vomit and all that other fun stuff, but this was something on its own planet of ripe. Maybe next time, guys.

-Hilarity at Coachella #3: Flabby white dude walking around in a Borat bikini. All that effort to dress up and he still purposely flashed people left and right.

-Saw bits of lots of Sunday afternoon bands. Peter Bjorn and John were kind of lackluster; Antony and the Johnsons is just not my thing; Clipse canceled. Oh well. X felt like an Important Band I Never Got the Chance to Know. I know they’re important and should be seen and all that, but after seeing so many upstart young turks giving it their all to rock your face early in the festival, it was hard to get into a show that looked essentially like my friends’ parents playing in a punk cover band.

-Father of the Year award goes to 20-something Douchebag in front of us at My Bloody Valentine – remember, their show is so loud that they handed out earplugs to everyone at the festival that day – who was too busy dancing to notice that his two-year-old daughter was covering her ears in pain for the first few songs of the set. When she got tired and wanted to sleep, dude went to the trouble of letting her lie on the ground between his feet. In the middle of a General Admission crowd. With people walking around and through them constantly. IN THE DARK. If the drunk, lumbering asshole from the Silversun Pickups crowd had been there, that girl would not have a face anymore. As opposed to just not having any hearing anymore. PARENTS, DO NOT BRING YOUR KIDS TO LOUD CONCERTS. ALSO, DON’T BE DICKS.

-I’m glad I got to see Public Enemy, but – in keeping with a disturbing trend for this year’s festival – their sound felt way off, with absolutely no bass in the mix (even during “Bass in your face!”) and Flava Flav rapping over his own vocal track. Flav did some stage diving, sure, and these guys are still eerily relevant, but “Don’t Believe the Hype” was all I really needed to hear before I was ready to head elsewhere.

-Other evidence that Sunday was the Day of the Unimpressive Reunion: My Bloody Valentine was good, but played the same show I saw last fall (this may be my problem more than theirs, but still); they really stuck to their guns by retaining their Sonic Holocaust for the festival setting, but I can’t imagine they made many fans out of the casual set for doing so. Later, Throbbing Gristle played us some creepy industrial music that felt very revolutionary for its time, but was too droning to keep my interest that late in the evening.

-Though really, how can you complain when the dude’s rocking a kingly robe like that?

-Oddly enough, some of the most fun I had Sunday was watching Devendra Banhart. People like to hate on the guy, and I’m admittedly unfamiliar with his stuff, but coming in not knowing a thing, I had a real blast. The music was the perfect combination of chill and dancey as the sun set, and the crowd loved all of it. Something about a fan’s sign reading “HEY DEVENDRA IT’S MY BIRTHDAY, BROTHER” really made me smile. He played a new jammy song “Rats” which everyone seemed to love on first listen; oh yeah, and he brought up HAR MAR SUPERSTAR for the last song, thankfully to play maracas and not to strip. Why Coachella stuck this popular band in the tiny Gobi tent while other bands had been struggling to fill even half of the Mojave tent throughout the afternoon, I may never understand.

-The Cure played us out as we headed for the car. I’ve never been a fan but they sounded good, and I’m told they were in the middle of their third encore when Coachella actually pulled the plug on them – which is a shame, but damn, so much music!

-Overall it was another great concert experience – there were some disappointments and I wish the scheduling had worked more in my favor, but we’d all like a perfect life, wouldn’t we? Now that we’re all crammed back into our desks and office buildings, I think the thing I already miss the most is that brief situational fraternity you have with everyone around you in the crowd: you may never know their names and you might not get along in real life, but here, for a few minutes, you’re all dancing as one to your favorite music, the briefest part of something indescribably bigger and deeper than yourself. All lives fraught with the meaning between the chords. Something that, at the end of the day, you know is more than worth it. Bring on the next one.